American English as a Typologically Hypertrophic Language

June 25, 2017

Linguistic typology studies the various types of language structure as evidenced by human languages past and present. For instance, when it comes to the sound structure of a language, the broad general division is into two types, vocalic and consonantal languages. Accordingly, a language with a relatively large inventory of vowels (like English) is contrasted with one (like Russian) that evinces a relatively large inventory of consonants.

A language type that has not been noticed by linguists is one that can be called “hypertrophic.” More concretely, as has been explored in many posts on this blog, American English should be regarded as a hypertyrophic type for manifesting a marked tendency toward all kinds of superfluous engorgement and functionless redundancy, including pleonasm. This tendency should be classified as a species of failure of thought and rooted out wherever possible. Unfortunately, even educated speakers of Standard American English can be heard utilizing locutions that evince this typological feature. For instance, on this week’s NPR program “On the Media” the author David Daley was heard uttering the phrase “based off of” instead of the correct “based on” in a spontaneous answer to the host’s question about the American census. In analyzing this solecism, only some sense of linguistic hypertrophy accurately reflects what is at stake.